Mars rover "Curiosity" set for touchdown next week | Hacker News Reader

Mars rover "Curiosity" set for touchdown next week

nasa.gov

63 pointsjoshlegs18 comments

Here's an excellently produced video showing just how ambitious the design is:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/video/index.cfm?id=1090

I was nearly in shock as to how complicated the landing sequence was going to be and then...sky crane.

That is one amazingly ambitious project.

So that is basically insane, but I do have to ask how many of those kinds of maneuvers have been tried before? I mean, they say they can't land the rover with rockets, so I assume they have used alternate methods before as well?

The smaller rovers "bounced down" with airbags.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags

For comparison, here is the similar video that they put out to describe the EDL system used by Spirit & Opportunity back in 2004. For some reason it was a mere 6 minutes of terror. I'm not sure what accounts for the discrepancy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij33yhdGn_g

Phoenix was also 7 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2ucH1PT4LQ

Maybe the retrorockets/sky crane in Phoenix/Curiosity (respectively) add a few seconds.

Here's a pretty good presentation on the design constraints of Curiosity. He answers the 6 vs 7 question about 27 minutes in: it's the guided-descent phase that gives the extra minute.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q38AncYm2U

Thanks guys. It was neat to see what parts of the design (and the video) were reused from prior projects.

This sounded more like some movie maker pitching a scene for a sci-fi movie. Except they are actually serious.

It's the landing sequence on this that has me spooked. Not that I doubt the engineering behind it but wow, to put something this heavy on the planet they had to come up with a fairly complex sequence as the 7 Minutes of Terror video explains. I'm sure it's been checked and rechecked but I don't think I'd want to have to go through the stress of waiting for final confirmation.

If they pull this off then my extreme kudos to the team, and I very eagerly await a new set of eyes on MARS. I couldn't get enough of what came out of every previous rover. Maybe I missed my calling. :)

They had a similarly remarkable landing for the Mars Exploration Rovers. I happened to be interning at JPL with the MER EDL team when these rovers landed in 2004, and the level of precision and excitement was absolutely amazing. MER had 6 minutes of terror, and they do get some data during these 6 minutes, it's just they can't do anything about it because the round trip communication delay at the time was about 20 minutes.

I remember one of the engineers comparing the precision needed for launching and landing a Rover on Mars to hitting a golf ball in California and landing a hole in one in Florida.

Here's the MER EDL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij33yhdGn_g

If it works they will be heroes, if it fails there will be a lot of questioning of their wisdom.

Very risky plan in a lot of senses.

Not to say it's not the right one, but man are they putting a lot on the line.

I'm sure the engineers have been haunted by the Genesis landing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_%28spacecraft%29#Recov...

I'm pretty stoked about the potential video, myself.

Here's a G+ event that will automatically add to your calendar and let you know when the live coverage starts:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110701307803962595019/posts/cZZ9...

Such a shame that there will be very little 'curiosity' expressed by the general public.

Darn you physics and your 14 minute tape delay, I want to tweet this live!

I hope the rover will dig a hole in the ground and uncover a shiny piece of metal, continue digging and find the corner of a massive spaceship.

Then we power it up and it still works.

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